Tesla receives building permit for Giga Mexico

Tesla has received all the permits to start building its factory in Mexico. This means Tesla can start further construction work. However, it is still open when exactly the carmaker will do so.

“They already gave us all their needs to start construction, so we can be sure that Tesla is coming to Nuevo Leon,” Iván Rivas, the economy minister of the Mexican state of Nuevo León, told the local daily Milenio. So now it’s up to Tesla to decide when to start building the plant.

Elon Musk recently hinted that Tesla is in no particular hurry to do so. “And in Mexico, we’re laying the groundwork to begin construction and doing all the long lead items, but I think we want to just get a sense for the global economy is like before we go full tilt on the Mexico factory. I am worried about the high interest rate environment that we’re in,” Musk explained. He said he could not yet give a timetable for the Mexico plant in light of these concerns.

The US electric carmaker announced the factory in the Mexican state of Nuevo León at the beginning of March. At that time, there was talk of an investment of five billion dollars and, a little later, of a production capacity of one million e-cars per year. Subsequently, initial preparatory work was observed on the site. Nuevo León’s economy minister Rivas now also said: “Tesla is coming, Tesla is working, Tesla somehow already started with the construction, as well as the Government of Nuevo Leon; we are doing it at the same time, they already have all their federal and state permits.”

Tesla received the first environmental permits for the plant at the end of September. Tesla has to comply with certain requirements and now has 26 months to prepare the site and start building the factory. So there is a certain time frame that Tesla can still wait. Already at the beginning of September, it was reported with reference to Chinese suppliers that Tesla’s new factory in Mexico could start production in 2026 or 2027.

In Mexico, Tesla wants to build the ‘Next Generation Vehicles’, which are based on a new platform. According to the key data presented at the ‘Investors Day’, production costs for these vehicles are to be reduced by 50 per cent. In addition, the space required in the plant is to be reduced by 40 per cent.

milenio.com (in Spanish), reuters.com (Musk statements), electrek.com